


ghosts

by rockatansky



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, max has ghosts, rated teen just to be safe but there's nothing explicit - just sadness, she's one of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockatansky/pseuds/rockatansky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s almost numbing, what the sight of her does to his fingers and toes - like if he drew his hands from the wheel and let the vehicle spin into the sand, he would allow himself to be swallowed by the resulting flames and not care a little bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghosts

She arrives a week after he leaves.

The voices have been nagging since the day he took a car and drove away from the Citadel, and it was a little disconcerting at first because they had quietened during the three days in the stolen war rig. A little sad, too, because a part of him thought they had finally decided to give a small form of peace. But when he feels her presence raise the hairs on the back of his neck, it interrupts the cacophony of murmurs and moans and oh-so-familiar accusations that have begun to dull his senses like radio static, and he’s almost thankful for it.

That is, until he glances to the side and finds her sitting in the passenger seat - unmarred and quiet, staring ahead at the road with an almost thoughtful gaze.

It’s not a shock - doesn't fill him with the lurching fear that Glory’s wide eyes do, or the wrenching guilt that Angharad’s bloodied form brings about. It’s almost numbing, what the sight of her does to his fingers and toes - like if he drew his hands from the wheel and let the vehicle spin into the sand, he would allow himself to be swallowed by the resulting flames and not care a little bit.

He’s almost tempted, but if he was the sort of man who could kill himself he would have done so long ago - she doesn’t turned to face him and is gone with a blink.

It’s only flickers after that. A flash of metal fingers on the dashboard. The tilt of a shaven head in the rearview mirror. Each one unravels him a little bit more, and the voices get louder and louder as the hours, days, weeks pass, until they’re deafening. He can barely concentrate on the road anymore, but she’s always silent when he loses his control, silent while he tries to piece himself back together.

One night, after he hasn’t slept for three days and the ghosts are starting to split apart his skull, he hits a dune at a bad angle and skids. He slams into the old, fractured door so hard that it bursts open and he tumbles out of it, into the night.

When he wakes up in the morning, his head is silent, and she is standing over him.

He lurches, because she’s a spectre, she has to be, but he can see her eyes staring down and they are so green, so  _alive_. 

And then she speaks. 

“Not a very safe place to sleep, Fool.”

She ran out of supplies a few days ago, and then out of guzzoline a few miles back, but she’s been tracking him, and walked to where she’d last watched his car vanish over the cleft of a dune. Her voice is so soft, sounds strange to his unused ears and at the same time so familiar, and he gestures to where his vehicle lies hulking and abandoned, sits dumb and shaken in the sand while he strains to hear her open the back door and reach in for one of the many canteens he has stored there.

After too long, he gets up, walks over, and peers in to see her sitting in the passenger side. He gets in beside her, and starts the engine.

He wonders how the girls are getting on, because she can’t be guiding them while here with him, and thinks she probably left because they could now manage on their own, and although it makes him wonder how long it’s been, it’s comforting. Her silence, which has stretched on for a good few miles, is not, and isn’t broken by any voices in his mind either. They have all decided to stay silent with her, apparently, and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t like it at all.

He grumbles under his breath, and her eyebrow raises.

“I’ve been seeing you. In my head.”

Her mouth twists ever so slightly, but she continues to say nothing, even though her eyes have turned sad.

They come across a settlement, and she stays in the car while he barters a few canteens for guzzoline, even though he’s got to be careful with his rations now because there’s one more body to supply. He can talk to the people easier, knowing she’s only a few metres away - watching from the window while she rubs grit and sand from the workings of her arm. It helps him with the questions, when they’re driving again.

“How is it. Back there.”

“Good. The girls are strong. Gas Town and the Bullet Farm signed our treaty easily enough.”

He nods.

“And…you?”

She smiles, very gently. “I needed to get out.”

He hums, knows how it feels, understands that for people like them, the Wasteland is hard to abandon.

A few days, and the knowledge that the water is going to run out a lot faster between them becomes an issue. He had been thinking of returning anyway. She does not seem to mind when he begins to gently curve back towards the Citadel, doesn’t even flinch when the rocks appear on the horizon. Sometimes, he forgets she’s there, she’s so quiet, and then he’ll remember he hasn’t seen Glory in a while and his eyes will flick over to her again, and his blood runs a little smoother.

They are just driving up to the entrance when she murmurs, under her breath. “You’ll always have a home here, Max. You’ll always be welcome.”

He pauses, then hums in reply, but it’s unnerving the way she says it. Like a consolation.

When they are let through, he drives slowly, takes his time to inspect the throng moving around the car. Healthy, clean, so unlike the wretched he had vanished amongst on that final day. Up ahead is the lift, and standing at the base are two familiar faces: a shock of red and a pair of stony eyes.

She nods at him, then at them; grants permission for him to get out and make his way over.

Capable beams wide at the sight of his lumbering form and rushes to meet him. Cheedo follows.

“Max. It’s been so long.”

Has it? He’d lost count of the days, only really started noticing when she joined him and broke him out of his tortured skull. The red hair is still almost too bright for him to look at, so he focuses on Cheedo instead - whose calm eyes and tilted chin are like a grounding. Remind him of her, in the passenger seat of his car. 

At the thought, he shuffles, clears his throat. “We ran out of water.”

Capable’s gaze flickers. “We?”

He gestures behind him, where she has most likely got out of the car and is probably standing, as an explanation. Capable looks. They have probably missed her, while she’s been with him, and he feel a pleased little warmth at the idea of a reunion.  

Cheedo doesn’t stop staring at him. Like she knows.

When Capable turns back to him again, her eyes are wary and worried, and he feels his breath begin to slow “Who, Max?”

He can’t turn round. He can’t look. “Her.” He says, but it sounds like a sob when it rips from his throat.

Capable’s head shakes, ever so slightly, and it’s Cheedo who speaks - voice soft and so sure.

“Max.”

He can feel it bubbling like blood from his lungs - throat tight with panic. The tears in Capables eyes and the ageless understanding in Cheedo’s make it so much worse.

“She’s not there.”

He scrambles, desperately, for a memory, but he can’t find it. He just shakes his head, over and over, like a twitch.

“She’s not here, Max.”

Tears stream down Capable’s cheeks, but it’s the way Cheedo’s remain bone dry that has his bones cracking and his heart- his heart…

“Max, just look.”

The command in the girl’s voice reminds him of another, so long ago, so he does as he’s told and turns.

She _is_  standing there. Staring at him, proud and unbroken. The only way she should ever be remembered. 

She has her flesh hand resting on the crown of Glory’s black, shining curls.

He chokes. Can’t remember falling, but suddenly the ground is hard and unyielding beneath his knees. She nods, gently, and it’s like a goodbye. He feels his whole world shatter, infinitely slowly.

When he blinks the salt from his eyes, there is nothing but sand stretching to the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> [the ask that inspired this monstrosity](http://furicsa.tumblr.com/post/123976890966/didnt-george-miller-say-that-all-those-people-max)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> if you hadn't already realised, this is an au where furiosa didn't survive the fury road


End file.
